02517cam a22002897 4500001000700000003000500007005001700012008004100029100002200070245008700092260006600179490004200245500001900287520123400306530006101540538007201601538003601673690005701709690006201766690010601828690007701934700002202011710004202033830007702075856003802152856003702190w11738NBER20170926183917.0170926s2005 mau||||fs|||| 000 0 eng d1 aJolls, Christine.10aDebiasing through Lawh[electronic resource] /cChristine Jolls, Cass R. Sunstein. aCambridge, Mass.bNational Bureau of Economic Researchc2005.1 aNBER working paper seriesvno. w11738 aNovember 2005.3 aIn many settings, human beings are boundedly rational. A distinctive and insufficiently explored legal response to bounded rationality is to attempt to "debias through law," by steering people in more rational directions. In many important domains, existing legal analyses emphasize the alternative approach of insulating outcomes from the effects of boundedly rational behavior, often through blocking private choices. In fact, however, a large number of actual and imaginable legal strategies are efforts to engage in the very different approach of debiasing through law by reducing or even eliminating people's boundedly rational behavior. In important contexts, these efforts to debias through law can avoid the costs and inefficiencies associated with regulatory approaches that take bounded rationality as a given and respond by attempting to insulate outcomes from its effects. This paper offers a general account of how debiasing through law does or could work to address legal questions across a range of areas, from consumer safety law to corporate law to property law. Discussion is also devoted to the risks of government manipulation and overshooting that are sometimes raised when debiasing through law is employed. aHardcopy version available to institutional subscribers. aSystem requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files. aMode of access: World Wide Web. 7aK00 - General2Journal of Economic Literature class. 7aK11 - Property Law2Journal of Economic Literature class. 7aK13 - Tort Law and Product Liability • Forensic Economics2Journal of Economic Literature class. 7aK22 - Business and Securities Law2Journal of Economic Literature class.1 aSunstein, Cass R.2 aNational Bureau of Economic Research. 0aWorking Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research)vno. w11738.4 uhttp://www.nber.org/papers/w1173841uhttp://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w11738